


When You Make A Choice

by Kyuubiluver342



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Blackmail, M/M, Murder, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-15 19:42:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18505759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyuubiluver342/pseuds/Kyuubiluver342
Summary: It had to happen sooner or later, right? They were only trying to help, but sometimes, you just can't save everyone.





	When You Make A Choice

 

Everything about her was a lie. It was a hard pill for Yusuke to swallow, but it was true. The “Sayuri”, the painting that had started him down the path to becoming an artist was, in itself, a lie. He wasn’t even sure if “Sayuri” was the real name of it, but it’s not like he could ask. Shaking his head, he put that thought away and rubbed his eyes. Ever since Sensei....no, he wasn’t Sensei anymore. He was Madarame, just Madarame and Yusuke had to remember that. But it was hard, oh so hard sometimes, remembering the man he had become over the man he had grown up with, but he had to try.

Since everything had come out about that man, Yusuke had felt more alone than ever. People looked at him differently than before and while he had gotten used to the stares and whispers behind his back, these were different. Gone were the jealous whispers and angry glares of those who wished they could be him, now they were replaced with pitying looks and scandalous words. A part of Yusuke wished he was blind and deaf so not to deal with them anymore. Another part realized that it was cruel of him to wish those things.

Yusuke sighed as he waited for the others to arrive. So far, they had not found another lead for a target, so they were visiting Mementos today. As Akira approached the accessway, the light from the nearby window hit his hair just so and by God, if Yusuke had a paintbrush and canvas right now, he would have painted the scene before him. Would have captured this perfect moment in time to cherish forever. He mentally stored that away for later, always good to keep inspiration like this in mind. He smiled and went to speak to him when an arm wrapped around Akira’s neck and Ryuji was there.

Yusuke hated the sudden burn of jealousy that flared in his chest at the sight of the two. Akira always smiled so easily when Ryuji was around and Ryuji always seemed so focused on what Akira was doing that he didn’t notice anyone else. Yusuke just wished he knew which one he was jealous of more.

“Hey, Yusuke!” Ryuji said with a wave.

If he could paint a smile as bright as Ryuji’s, he was sure the whole world would be blinded. If he could make a matching painting, he would have used Akira’s smile for the next one.

“Good afternoon.” Yusuke replied.

“How’s it hanging?” Ryuji asked as Akira nodded politely in greeting.

“I am doing well and yourselves?” he asked.

Akira idly pushed up his glasses and god, the light reflecting off of them made his eyes almost glow. Some days, he wondered why he hadn’t asked Akira to pose for him that day alongside Ann.

“Same shit, different day. You know how it goes.” Ryuji said with a shrug.

“Lady Ann isn’t here yet?” Morgana asked as he popped his head out of Akira’s bag.

“We didn’t see her in school today. Maybe she’s sick?” Ryuji wondered.

“Should we call her?” Yusuke asked concerned.

Akira was already on it, texting her to see where she was. A text back told them she was on her way, that she had taken the day off to visit Shiho. A few moments later, she appeared, flushed and panting before she straightened up. In her hands, she held a magazine and she looked all too excited.

“Oh my god, you guys are not going to believe this!” she said.

“Believe what?” Ryuji asked.

Ann flipped open the magazine and there was a whole two pages about the Phantom Thieves. As Ann, Morgana, and Ryuji excitedly talked about it, Akira and Yusuke stood back.

“I am not quite sure we should be excited about such a thing.” Yusuke muttered.

Akira nodded and then sighed.

“You seem to agree with me, but you don’t stop them?” Yusuke asked and Akira shrugged.

He leaned in and whispered into Yusuke’s ear. Yusuke blinked and then nodded.

“Ah I see. It’s like that then.” Yusuke stated.

“It’s like what then?” Ryuji asked.

“Oh, nothing. Shall we get started on the new requests that have come in?” Yusuke asked clapping his hands.

Morgana coughed and they gathered around.

“Ok, according to Mishima, we have two requests right now. Both are pretty serious as far as we can tell.” Morgana stated.

“The first one was given to us last night. Apparently, there is a very serious blackmail ring going around at Shujin. As far as we have been told, it is being run by a teacher named Ichiro Suzuki. He’s a really nasty guy with connections to a local gang around here and according to the request, if we don’t handle it soon, there’s a chance a bunch of people could get seriously hurt. The request came in as urgent.” Morgana explained.

“Whoa, shouldn’t we hop on this? Sounds really serious.” Ryuji replied.

“Well, that’s the problem. A second request came in and it’s just as urgent as the first, but this focuses more on a life or death situation for one person.” Morgana stated.

“Life or death? My, that is quite ominous.” Yusuke muttered.

“A female student posted a comment stating that her friend is being stalked by an ex-boyfriend and that the ex-boyfriend has already attacked her once. She fears the next time, he might even kill her.” Morgana explained.

“Holy shit, dude. For real? That’s crazy! What are we standing around here for? We need to handle that guy immediately!” Ryuji demanded.

“But what about the other request? Morgana said several people could get really hurt if we don’t do that one first.” Ann replied.

“Ann is quite right. We can’t ignore a group of people for just one person.” Yusuke stated.

“I’m not so sure.” Morgana muttered.

“As much as I hate to say it, but one person where we know for sure she is in danger versus a group where we have no idea if they are in any danger or not is a serious conudium. And unfortunately, with how tough both cases look, there is no way we can do both at our current level. We will need to do one or the other.” Morgana explained.

Akira watched this all quietly before sighing. They turned to him, waiting patiently. As the leader he would, naturally, have the final say. Akira paused for the longest time, looking over the two requests before nodding. He held up the request.

“So you think we should go after the teacher first?” Ryuji asked.

Akira nodded slowly and then looked at Morgana.

“Hm, I suppose you are right. We don’t even have a name for the other request, so there really isn’t anything we can do with it. Let’s focus on that one tomorrow. Maybe Mishima can get us a name by then.” Morgana stated slowly.

Ryuji frowned and looked down before sighing. He kicked the ground and then nodded.

“If you think that’s the way to go, then I’m all for it. You’ve never led us wrong before.” Ryuji said with a smile.

With a final nod, they entered Mementos. Finding the teacher, Ichiro, was not hard at all. He sneered and snarled at them, talking non-stop about being the new “King of Shujin” and how his word was law, that anyone who didn’t bow would be destroyed. When they finally took him down, he disappeared without a word and Yusuke sighed.

“It is becoming more and more clear to me that humans as a whole have some very twisted desires.” Yusuke said sadly.

“Yeah and that’s why we are here, to keep their desires in line.” Ryuji said clapping him on the shoulder.

“I suppose you are right.” Yusuke said, thankful his mask covered his blush.

“Let’s go home, team. We did good.” Morgana said pleased.

Yet, as Yusuke left Mementos, he had the oddest feeling something was about to go wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong.

 

When Yusuke woke up the next day, he felt pleasantly rested, despite having slept in his studio. It seems running around in Mementos was certainly a great way to get a good night’s rest. However, as he walked to his first class of the day, he heard the whispers, but they were different this time.

“Did you see the news?”

“Oh my god, I can’t believe it! That poor girl!” 

“They say she was murdered! On her own front porch! How terrifying!”

“By an ex-boyfriend, no less!”

Yusuke stopped dead, staring at the floor. Horror curled in his soul and he felt ill. He grabbed his phone and walked quickly to the nearest exit. The group chat was blowing up.

Ryuji: Did anyone see the news?

Ann: I just saw it! Was that the request from yesterday?

Ryuji: I don’t know! I went to check, but the post is gone!

Ann: We need to talk to Mishima, maybe he knows?

Ryuji: Oh god, we fucked this up, didn’t we? Damnit!

Ann: Calm down, Ryuji! We need to think about this.

Yusuke: Has anyone heard from Akira?

The group chat went silent for a moment.

Ryuji: I tried to call, but he won’t answer. Shit.

Ann: We should head over there right away. They gave us the day off since she was from our school.

Ann: Let’s meet at the station and head over to Akira’s.

Yusuke nodded and started to make his way towards the station. As he passed a TV store, he swallowed hard as he saw the news pop up. God, just seeing the police at the scene was horrible. Yusuke kept walking and soon met up with Ryuji and Ann.

“I still can’t get through. He must have turned off his phone.” Ryuji cursed.

“Just keep calm, Ryuji. We will go see him in person.” Yusuke stated.

As they rode the train, they were all lost in thought. Getting off and walking to the cafe wasn’t hard, but when they got there, they found Sojiro and he wasn’t happy.

“He’s upstairs. He refused to come down this morning.” Sojiro said nodding towards the stairs.

As they crossed the cafe, they found Morgana sitting at the bottom and meowing pitifully.

“He won’t let me come up.” Morgana whispered as Ann picked him up.

Ryuji scowled before starting up the stairs. Yusuke and Ann looked at each other before following. At the top, they found Akira, curled up in his bed, not moving. Yusuke swallowed hard, he looked too still.

“Akira?” Ann called.

His body twitched and Yusuke let out a soft sigh of relief. But he didn’t turn to them. He just curled up tighter.

“Akira, come on, man. Talk to us.” Ryuji said.

Akira sat up and he was a mess. His face was flushed and his eyes were red. He looked like he had tried to pull chunks of his own hair out of his head. Morgana whimpered and Ann put him down, allowing him to hop up on the bed.

“You didn’t know. You couldn’t have known this would happen.” Morgana stated.

Akira just looked away, eyes closed. He looked miserable. Everyone looked at each other.

“We made a choice. We all agreed to take the one request over the other. You can’t hold that against yourself alone.” Yusuke explained.

“Yeah man. We had no idea this would happen. We were trying to help.” Ryuji stressed.

“But, we did know she was in danger.” Ann muttered.

Everyone looked at her. Her arms were crossed and she was looking away.

“I mean, we knew she was in danger, we knew that this could happen. I just wonder, did we really do all we could?” she asked.

Akira buried his face in his hands and his shoulders started to shake. Ryuji looked like he wanted to say something, anything, but he just closed his mouth and looked away, covering his mouth with his hand. Yusuke swallowed and sat down on the couch. Morgana was the one who spoke up.

“Stop it! All of you!” he snapped before softening.

“I know it’s hard and I know it feels like you all got punched in the gut, but listen to me. We are human, we make mistakes. What that man did, what he decided to do, had nothing to do with us. We made a choice as a group and we believed that we were helping people. To start having doubts now isn’t going to help anyone.” He explained.

“But…” Ann trailed off.

“Lady Ann, I know this is difficult, but there’s nothing we can do. If we had tried to fight them both, we certainly would have lost. I think what we have to take into consideration here is that we tried.” Morgana finished.

“I have to agree with Morgana. We were working with the information we had and for that request, we didn’t have a name or anything else to go on.” Yusuke stated.

Akira rubbed his eyes and nodded slowly. Ryuji just scowled and rubbed his neck.

“It just sucks. I mean we worked so hard!” Ryuji slammed his fist against the bed.

“Well, we still have one chance to make this right.” Morgana stated.

“How so?” Yusuke asked.

“We make him confess. If we do that, then we can take some of the burden off the police to prove it and the family that is grieving.” Morgana stated.

The determination everyone suddenly had seemed to fill the room. Akira slowly got off his bed and wiped his eyes. They were still red, but he looked like he was ready to throw down. Ryuji pulled out his phone and gave a call to Mishima.

 

“The guy’s name is Go Soeda. He’s already in police custody, but according to Mishima, he is refusing to talk. He claims he had nothing to do with it. And so far, there are no witnesses, no murder weapon and very little evidence against him.” Ryuji said as they entered Mementos.

“What a creep.” Ann muttered angrily.

“Let us take care of this fiend and be done with it.” Yusuke said.

“You know, dude, I really want to know who taught you how to talk.” Ryuji muttered.

Deeper and deeper into Mementos they went, fighting off Shadows and chasing down treasure, but they never forgot about their intended target. As the hopped through the swirling portal, Akira felt a burst of rage at seeing the man. He was young with a goatee and beanie, but he had a cruel look in his eyes.

“Another bunch of weaklings, huh? I’ll take you all on!” he howled.

“What a low level creep.” Ryuji stated.

“Low level! As if, man! That’s what that bitch thought of me too and look what happened to her!” he laughed.

“You’re a monster! How could you do such a thing!” Ann demanded.

“She brought it upon herself, man!” he snarled.

“She brought everything that happened upon herself!” he screeched.

He transformed into a dripping mass of slime with a million eyes. He was not particularly tough, but he seemed to be able to regenerate by recollecting parts he lost, which it made him difficult to pin down. In the end, he became a small slime, barely bigger than a fist before changing back. His eyes were wet and miserable.

“I loved her, why didn’t she see that? I just wanted to love her.” he whined.

“Get over yourself. You didn’t love her. You wanted to control her. You wouldn’t have hurt her if you love her!” Ann snapped.

“I couldn’t let her leave me! What would I do then?” he asked.

“Grow a pair for starters.” Ryuji stated.

“You ended her life without a single care to her family or friends or anyone else. You’re disgusting and you need to confess what you did!” Yusuke replied coldly.

The man nodded and then disappeared. The team stood there a moment more, all silently wondering if it worked before Morgana spoke.

“This will help the family get peace of mind. Don’t forget that.” he stated.

They nodded, but Akira couldn’t help, but stare blankly at the spot where he once stood. Yusuke looked around before placing a hand on his shoulder. When Akira flashed a smile his way, he found himself, once again thankful that his mask covered most of his face. 

 

The next day, the news exploded with Go Soeda’s confession. The police wouldn’t admit it, but it was clear, without the confession, they had nothing to hold him on. Yusuke sat in Cafe LeBlanc and wondered if this would be the end of it. Would they get more issues like this in the future? Would they have to make the difficult choice between one request and another, praying they picked the right one? He hoped not, but he was not that naive to think it wouldn’t happen again.

He locked eyes with Akira, who gave a small smile and he smiled back. Akira still had the dark shadows in his eyes, but Yusuke prayed they would release him soon. No one deserved to be haunted by past regrets and failures.

  
  



End file.
